1 / 47

Challenges, Opportunities and New Directions

Challenges, Opportunities and New Directions. NSF Regional Grants Conference October 4- 5, 2004 St. Louis, MO. Hosted by: Washington University. Tom Cooley Chief Financial Officer & Director, Office of Budget, Finance & Award Management tcooley@nsf.gov (703) 292-8200. Jean Feldman

kamin
Download Presentation

Challenges, Opportunities and New Directions

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Challenges, Opportunities and New Directions NSF Regional Grants Conference October 4- 5, 2004 St. Louis, MO Hosted by: Washington University

  2. Tom Cooley Chief Financial Officer & Director, Office of Budget, Finance & Award Management tcooley@nsf.gov (703) 292-8200 Jean Feldman Head, Policy Office Division of Institution & Award Support jfeldman@nsf.gov (703) 292-8243 Ask Us Early, Ask Us Often!!

  3. Coverage • Challenges, Opportunities & The Long Hard Road Ahead • Tom Cooley • Electronic Initiatives • Jean Feldman

  4. Challenges, Opportunities & the Long Hard Road Ahead

  5. What’s the latest on ….. • Challenges • Political Landscape • Management Challenges • Congress and the Budget • Opportunities • Research Business Models Subcommittee • The Continuing Long, Hard Road Ahead • Cost Sharing Policy • Award Size/Duration Study

  6. Challenges • Political Landscape • Election Year • Growing Deficit ($422B est.) • “War Time” Environment • Economic/Job Uncertainty • Continuing Management Challenges • Visas • Improper Payments Information Act of 2002 • Other issues such as export controls, etc.

  7. Visas • IPASS (Interagency Panel on Advancing Science & Security) moving to Department of Homeland Security • Broader definition of “sensitive research” • Challenge: To balance National Security vs. “cutting edge” Science & Technology Research • More stringent & thorough review of passport & VISA requests • Current Environment • Delays in VISA processing • Prominent Scientists delayed coming to conferences

  8. Visas • Impacts – Decline in % foreign students studying in U.S. • Process may become so onerous - best & brightest foreign students choose to go elsewhere • Potential cost increases to universities for SEVIS reporting requirements (Student & Exchange Visitor Program) may have negative impact on admissions • Increasedscrutiny in “sensitive” research disciplines will reduce participation in some areas over time • POC: Jack Mitchell - (703) 292-8010 - jmitchel@nsf.gov

  9. Improper Payments Information Act of 2002 • History • The Federal Government makes more than $35 billion in improper payments each year in programs that represent $1 trillion in outlays • IPIA requires agencies to report on programs or activities with estimated improper payments exceeding $10 million and detail actions the agency is taking to reduce these improper payments • OMB further expanded the definition: An erroneous or improper payment includes any payment that was made to an ineligible recipient or for an ineligible service • NSF is the only research grant-making agency required to measure improper use of grant funds. All others are required to report entitlement or block grants programs

  10. Improper Payments Information Act of 2002 (cont’d) • Current Action • NSF sampled improper payments on all site visits to high-risk grantees as identified in our Award Monitoring Program • A BFA team is analyzing the results of the site visits for the Performance and Accountability Reports (PAR) • Continue innovative efforts for administering an improper payments program as part of a holistic grants monitoring approach, which assures accurate award institution identity and grant eligibility

  11. Congress and the Budget:The Future is Dimly LitandFor R&D the Future May be Dim

  12. NSF’s Key Congressional Players • House and Senate Budget Committees • Authorization Committees • House Science Committee/Sub-committees • Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee • Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee • Appropriations Committees • House and Senate VA, HUD & Independent Agencies Appropriations Subcommittees

  13. Ag CJS DC E&W ForOps Int LHHSEd Leg Transp TPS VA-HUD Role of the Appropriations Committees • Disperses >$660 Billion Through Subcommittees • Works With Congressional Leadership and Members to Address Priorities of Budget Resolution OLPA-5

  14. Percentage Composition of Federal Government Outlays

  15. R&D Budget Budget Authority 2005 Percent (dollar amounts in millions) Proposed Change Defense 69,856 7% Health and Human Services 29,381 4% NASA 11,308 4% Energy 8,893 1% National Science Foundation 4,252 3% Agriculture/USDA 2,105 -9% Veterans Affairs 772 -6% Commerce 1,075 -5% Homeland Security 1,216 15% Transportation 749 7% Interior 648 -4% Environmental Protection Agency 577 0% Other 1,034 -5% TOTAL 131,866 5%

  16. Physical Sciences Energy & Natural Resources Environment & Public Works Environmental Commerce, Science, Sciences & Transportation Life Agriculture, Sciences Nutrition, & Forestry Social Sciences Other Sciences Development of the Federal R&D Budget Showing Fields of Science and Executive and Legislative Decision Units Connecting lines indicate location of agency budget decisions, but not decision sequences. National Science and Technology Council Research Committees Budget Review Offices (OMB) House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees House & Senate Budget Committees (Budget Functions) Senate Authorization Committees House Authorization Committees Fields of Science Departments & Agencies (With significant R&D $) National National Security & International Affairs Defense Engineering Agency for International Development Defense Armed Services National Security Defense International Environment and Natural Resources Affairs Energy General Science, Space & Technology Foreign Operations Foreign Relations International Relations Interior Natural Resources, Energy, and Science Energy and Water Development Commerce Math & Computer Science Energy International Science, Engineering and Technology Agriculture Resources Natural Resources & Environment NASA Interior Transportation & Infrastructure NSF Commerce, Justice, State, Judiciary Agriculture NRC Science EPA National Security Commerce & Housing Credit Agriculture & Related Agencies Agriculture Commerce Economics & Government Transportation VA-HUD-Inde- pendent Agencies Transportation Banking, Housing Banking & Financial Affairs & Urban Affairs Science Psychology Housing &Urban Development Community & Regional Development Economic & Educational Opportunities Labor and Human Transportation & Related Agencies Resources Education, Training, Employment, & Social Services Education Labor, Health & Human Services, & Education Technology Veterans Affairs Veterans Affairs Health & Human Services Health Human Resources, Veterans, and Labor Judiciary Judiciary Labor Veterans Benefits & Services Justice Administration of Justice Veterans Affairs

  17. New Opportunities • OSTP Subcommittee on Research Business Models • Impact of Federal funding policies on recipient organizations’ business practices • Working with the FDP, COGR, and others

  18. Legend Informal Social, Behavioral & Econ. Under development NSTC Director, OSTP Current NSTCStructure Committee on Environment & Natural Resources Committee on Science Committee on Technology Committee on Homeland and National Security WH: Olsen NSF: Bement NIH: Zerhouni WH: Russell DOC: Bond WH: Olsen DOC: Lautenbacher EPA: Gilman WH: Dale DOD: Wynne DHS: McQueary Research Business Models Technology Dev. Education & Workforce Dev. Global Change Research National Security R&D Large Scale Science Networking Information & Technology Radiological/Nuclear Countermeasures Air Quality Research Aquaculture Disaster Reduction Nanoscale Science, Eng. & Technology International Human Subjects Research Ecosystems WMD Medical Countermeasures IWG Physics of the Universe Aerospace Toxics & Risks IWG Plant Genome Standards Water Availability & Quality IWG Dom. Animal Genomics IWG Earth Observations R&D Investment Criteria Research Misconduct Policy Infrastructure Biotechnology IWG on Dioxin Oceans Health and the Environment.

  19. Status Report: Research Business Models (RBM) Subcommittee of the Committee on Science/NSTC • Three working groups created (2003) • Common Practices (EPA and NSF Co-Chair) • Alignment of Funding Mechanisms with Scientific Opportunities (DOE and NSF Co-Chair) • Cost Determination, Recovery, and Accountability (ONR and HHS Co-Chair)

  20. Status Report: RBM • Request for Information issued in Federal Register August 6, 2003 • Comments received thru December 2003 • Community outreach to AAU, FDP, COGR, NCURA, SRA, NASULGC, etc.

  21. Research Business Models (RBM) • Community identified 43 priority items; Ten items marked as initiatives and endorsed by the Committee on Science • Winter 2003: Created one high priority group to be addressed immediately • Developing communication and action plans; involving IGs

  22. Research Business Models (RBM)High Priority Items • Facilitating Collaborative Multidisciplinary Research • Acknowledgement of Co-PIs in proposals and agency information systems; • Stability and predictability of support for research facilities and instrumentation independent of individual projects; • Support for graduate and postdoctoral students with regard to salary, stipends, tuition, benefits, etc.; • Collaboration between universities, federal laboratories, and industry

  23. Research Business Models (RBM)High Priority Items (Cont’d) • Improving Consistency of Agency Practice • Standard progress and financial reporting procedures • Broader use of the Federal Demonstration Partnership model subagreement • Consistent award notices format and terms and conditions • Harmonizing Stewardship and Accountability • A-133 monitoring requirements for A-133 compliant institutions • Consistent Federal-wide policies for Research Misconduct • Consistent Federal-wide policies for Research Conflict of Interest

  24. Research Business Models (RBM)Next Steps • Report to Committee on Science (COS) on October 7 • Likely to recommend action on 3-5 of the high priority initiatives (Co-PIs, institutional subagreements, more consistent support for graduate students) • Resulting policy, models, and templates will be published in a “Tool Kit for Multidisciplinary and Collaborative Research” on the RBM website. • Other initiatives will be brought to COS and published in the Tool Kit as they are ready

  25. The Continuing Long, Hard Road Ahead • Cost Sharing Policy • Award Size & Duration

  26. Cost Sharing • National Science Board clarified policy: 2002 • NSF instituted procedures: 2003 • Requires continued attention by all of us • Next NSF step – eliminate cost sharing on MRI proposals • Continued incremental steps will be taken to reduce/eliminate cost sharing requirements in NSF program solicitations • NSB will review again in October 2004

  27. Cost Sharing Data: FY 2000-2004 Fiscal C/S Dollars Awards Total Award % Year Actions FY2000 $508M 3109 19,789 15.71 FY2001 $534M 3346 20,529 16.30 FY2002 $419M 3188 21,369 14.92 FY2003 $325M 2359 22,782 10.35 FY2004 $233M 1545 22,708 6.80 (FY 04 as of 9/27)

  28. Cost Sharing • Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) • http://www.nsf.gov/bfa/dias/policy/docs/csfaqs.pdf

  29. Award Size/Duration • Surveys of PI’s & Institutions in 2001 • Study Results Published July 2002 • New average grant size goal • From $100K/3 years to $250K/5 years • Overtime: currently at $138K/2.9 years • Declining success rates (33% 25%) • Trade-offs will have to be made

  30. Electronic Initiatives

  31. What’s the Latest On? • FastLane • Grants.gov • Grants Management Lines of Business

  32. NSF FastLane • FastLane is over 40 externally facing interactive web-based systems used by scientists, engineers, educators, research and financial administrators to conduct business with NSF electronically. • Began ten years ago as experimental project • Electronic Proposal Submission through FastLane became required in October 2000. • www.fastlane.nsf.gov

  33. FY03 FY02 FY01 99.99 FY00 99.96 FY99 99.6 81 FY98 44 FY97 17 4 An eGovernment Success StoryFY 04 Stats • Over 40,000 Electronic Proposals Received • 190,000 Electronic Reviews • 25,000 Electronic Grantee Progress Reports • 9,000 Electronic Graduate Research Fellowships • 15,000 Electronic Cash Requests • $3.5 Billion Distribution of Funds 100 Electronic Proposal PercentBy Fiscal Year (FY 97-03)

  34. Org F Y Number of Proposals Number of Awards Funding Rate Average Decision Time (months) Mean Award Duration (years) Median Annual Size NSF 03 40,073 10,844 27% 5.31 2.55 $99,200 02 35,157 10,406 30% 5.65 2.65 $80,000 01 31,940 9,926 31% 6.02 2.65 $77,161 00 29,508 9,850 33% 6.24 2.63 $70,000 99 28,579 9,190 32% 6.05 2.67 $63,640 98 28,422 9,381 33% 5.92 2.67 $58,750 97 30,258 9,936 33% 6.07 2.59 $54,133 96 30,200 9,116 30% 6.86 2.58 $51,163 95 30,442 9,676 32% 6.62 2.49 $50,591 94 30,337 10,047 33% 6.59 2.49 $50,000 NSF Summary Proposal and Award Information

  35. FastLane Users • 7,000 registered FastLane organizations • Universities and Colleges including Community Colleges and Minority Serving Institutions • Large and Small Businesses • Non-profits • State and Local Governments • 270,000 registered FastLane users • Principal Investigators (PIs) & Co-PIs • Reviewers • Sponsored Projects Offices (SPO) • Financial Offices

  36. Recent Enhancements to FastLane • Enhance Proposal File Update Module • Ability to change proposal data. • Ability to add files where none exist. • Create Letter of Intent Module • Port “look and feel” of the new Research Administration module to FastLane Home Page and login pages

  37. Planned Enhancements to FastLane • Enhance Guest Travel and Payment system • Redesign Project Reports System • Implement Sophisticated Help Functionality

  38. The Grants.gov Initiative • Mandate - President’s Management Agenda and PL106-107 • Originally called the E-Grants Initiative • Eleven Partner Agencies • HHS (managing partner), NSF, Defense, Education, HUD, Justice, Transportation, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, and Homeland Security/FEMA • Produce a simple, unified “storefront” for all customers of Federal grants to electronically • Find grant opportunities – Launched in February 2003 • Apply for grants – Launched in October 2003 with SF424 forms

  39. Applicant 1 Applicant N Applicant 3 Applicant 2 Agency N Agency 1 Agency 2 Agency 3 Grants.gov Solution – One place to go to find opportunities and submit proposals .…. .…. Benefits Both Grant Applicants and Agencies

  40. Grants.gov Current Status and Next Steps • All 26 grant-making agencies posting funding opportunities to the FIND mechanism. • As of September 13, 2004, 1,429 funding opportunities have been posted. • Of these, NSF has posted 361 opportunities of which 200 are currently active. This is the highest number of any agency besides HHS.

  41. Grants.gov Current Status and Next Steps • Deployed APPLY functionality • As of August 3, 2004, 959 applications to 164 federal programs from 15 agencies have been accepted via Grants.gov • Additional Forms Development for agencies not using the SF424 to collect additional data • Build Functionality to support the Research & Related Application Data Set – NSF was one of the agencies that led the design and development • Agency System to System Interface – Successfully tested with several agencies including NSF • Applicant System to System Interface – Gathering requirements, piloting in Fall 2004

  42. Integration with Apply capability of Grants.gov • NSF will integrate with Government-wide Grants.gov so that proposals can be submitted to NSF via Grants.gov and then processed electronically by NSF. • By Fall 2004, NSF will be able to accept proposals through Grants.gov • If your university wants to pilot our integration with Grants.gov please contact us and we will contact you!

  43. E-Authentication Federated Identity Architecture Pilot • To establish a system that allows applications to leverage credentials from other systems • Grants.gov, NSF and USDA will demonstrate the ability to serve as credential providers to each others’ systems. • On FastLane Test Server, NSF has demonstrated that users can use their Grants.gov or USDA credentials to access the FastLane PI and SPO functions. • Pilot involves several phases and expects to issue a report in Fall 2004.

  44. The following LOBs share core business requirements and similar business processes. Financial Management (FM) Human Resources Management (HR) Grants Management (GM) Federal Health Architecture (FHA) Case Management (CM) April: RFI issued for FM, HR, GM May: RFI responses received and analyzed June: Developed of Target Architecture and Common Solution Common Solution: A business process and/or technology based shared service made available to government agencies. Business Driven (vs. Technology Driven):Solutions address distinct business improvements that directly impact LoB performance goals. Developed Through Architectural Processes:Solutions are developed through a set of common and repeatable processes and tools. Lines of Business Opportunities OMB and the Line of Business Task Forces are focused on a business-driven, common solution developed through architectural processes.

  45. Grants Management: Visions & Goals

  46. Scope • The continuum of grants management business processes from application intake through award close out and financial reconciliation • Federal assistance funding for competitive and non-competitive awards • Award recipients include states; local units of government; the research community; private, non-profit organizations; and, individuals

  47. Expectations • A common, end-to end solution to support Federal grantors and grantees that would result in: • Transparency and efficiency in the grants decision making process • Improved access to grants-related programmatic and financial information • Enhanced ability to report on award-related accomplishments • Improved post award monitoring and oversight

More Related